


Tiger Prince

by thegreatpumpkin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Half-Sibling Incest, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:20:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: Tigris, the king's bastard, has long awaited a chance to overthrow his father, assassinate the crown prince, and seize the throne. But when the king dies unexpectedly and his half-brother is crowned before his plans are complete, he must play a different game to get what he wants.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is, to be completely forthright, just a draft. I've decided to go ahead and start posting to help motivate me to keep working on it, but it's entirely possible I'll be making heavy revisions to what is posted here later on.

This was what Tigris remembered of that day, later: the immense sky.

The overwhelming sound of a city, a constant racket and clatter.

And his brother, the lion.

The capitol was on a low plateau, he later understood—that was what made the sky seem so much larger than it had in the valley where he’d been born. It had been blue and cold that day, with stark white clouds stringing across it, impossibly high and impossibly wide; he felt small and quaking beneath it.

The sound, too, was terrible. It started before they even reached the city, the banging and creaking of wagons and horses and people on foot adding to the noise of their own party. Inside the city was worse, an unfathomable number of people coming and going and working at mysterious deafening pastimes, busy and voracious as ants. Tigris loathed every part of it.

The palace courtyard was a little better, the high walls blocking some of the city noise, and if the sky did not look any smaller at least it seemed to be held a little further at bay. He still didn’t like it, but at least he didn’t feel like his throat was closing up anymore.

“Down you come.” Tigris didn’t know how to ride, so he’d been doubled up with one of the King’s men who’d come to fetch him. He was small for eleven, and the man boosted him down easily. His legs felt weak and shaky as his feet touched the flagstones, but he tried not to show it.

It was then, wobbly-footed and cross, that he sighted the crown prince.

The prince was not meant to be there. Somehow he’d managed to charm out of some servant or another what all the fuss in the courtyard was about; and then, being fourteen and gently rebellious, he’d made up a pretext to go down and see this baseborn brother for himself.

Tigris had no idea who he was, then. Only that he stood out like a gold thread woven through linen; he had warm brown skin and a brilliant smile, tawny lion’s eyes and a great mane of tightly-curling brown hair that shone gold where the sun touched it. Tigris tried to get a better look, but then he was being ushered inside, shoved brusquely into the care of a worn-looking housekeeper. When he looked back over his shoulder, trying to catch another sight through the still-open door, the boy was gone.

He had looked happy, carefree, even in that brief glimpse.

Tigris hated him instantly.


	2. Little Beast

At the age of twelve—one year, three months, and thirteen days from the day he’d set foot in the palace, or the last day he’d set foot _outside_ the palace—Tigris had learned how not to be punished, if not precisely how to _behave_. 

He’d certainly learned how too much good behavior was as dangerous as too much bad, setting up an expectation he couldn’t possibly continue to meet, so he never bothered with that.

Tigris was a clever child in his own way, clever at reading people if not yet at charming them. He’d tested his tutor’s boundaries, his valet’s, every servant who entered his orbit, until he could find the exact line where crossing it meant someone brought out the switch, and keeping just shy of it meant it wasn’t worth their effort to do so. 

Most days he hovered right at the line; for the last several, however, he’d stayed well short of it.

His tutor had noticed. “Well!” he said that morning, when he came in with his clay tablet and stylus, looking Tigris over with a half-suppressed smile. “Now I see why you’ve been less of a trial lately. Going to the festival today, are you?”

“Yes,” he said complacently, for all the world like a boy who’d been told he could and not like one who’d simply decided it would be so.

Tigris had dressed himself—it was easy enough to manage, his valet was more concerned with keeping him contained than with performing the traditional valet duties. He knew that this particular set of clothes had been made in case he were called upon to have an audience with his father the King, but he had already grown into them waiting on that, and soon enough he’d have grown right back out of them again. People wore their best clothes for festivals, anyway, and this was his very best. (Some of the girls wore ribbons, he’d noticed, but he didn’t know how to put ribbons in his own hair and asking the valet was not part of his plan.)

One of the many things he had noticed about people in the palace was how they bowed to authority, real or imagined. If someone seemed to know his business, questions were only asked later. Tigris didn’t see why, if he acted as if he were going to the festival, it should not happen that way—never mind that he’d never been permitted to go beyond the bounds of his rooms and the courtyard outside them before.

Serving-boys went to festivals. Why not the son of a king?

Their lesson progressed. Tigris was not any better at his letters than usual, of course. If he’d worked out a way to become smarter on command, he’d have used it for more nefarious purposes. Still, he tried, and his tutor was also in a merry mood looking forward to the festivities, so it went as well as it might have done.

The valet came in as the tutor was rising to go. “You should hold festivals over this rascal every day, Naqqad. He’s never learnt better.”

The valet quirked an eyebrow; Tigris gave his least calculating smile, as if the festival were already an agreed-upon prize, and all he was angling for was being declared well-behaved enough to earn it. “This little beast always has something up his sleeve, you know that.”

“True, true. Well, I leave you to discover it.” The tutor packed up his tablet and left, leaving Tigris alone with the valet’s unamused stare.

“Who did you extort a promise out of?” Tigris opened his mouth, but the valet interrupted him before he spoke. “It doesn’t matter. Do you think the King wants people to see you on this of all days? But then maybe you don’t know, stupid as you are. It’s the anniversary of his _coronation_ , little beast. If he doesn’t want you out in public of an ordinary day, why do you think he’d want you out while people are celebrating his reign?”

“No one will see me. No one even knows what I look like.” Tigris glanced down at his clothing, and while he was hesitant to change, it was preferable to being denied entirely. “I could wear something else. I could dress like one of Naima’s sons.” He’d never seen any of Naima’s sons, but she talked about them a great deal when tending the garden in his courtyard, so he felt safe calling upon their existence.

“Stupid boy, you think people won’t notice this?” The valet smacked Tigris’ forehead—not hard, and only with a cupped palm—to indicate his mark. From his mother’s people he had inherited a slash of white, starting just above his eyebrows and streaking back into his hair; Tigris tended to forget it was there, especially now that his hair was kept cropped short and no longer fell into his line of vision.

He tried a different tack. “If I don’t go, you have to stay with me. Don’t you want to go?”

“Of course I want to go. Do you think I’ll enjoy myself towing you around, little beast?”

“My name is _Tigris_ ,” he said shortly, knowing that it wouldn’t help his case, but unable to help himself.

“Tigris, little beast, little tiger, it doesn’t matter. I could call you little bastard if I liked, and nobody would tell me different.” The valet waved a hand, bored with the little rebellion. “You’re staying, I’m staying, nobody will miss you, the ladies will weep for my absence. That’s the end of it.”

“The ladies will weep for _relief_ that they don’t have to suffer your attentions,” Tigris snapped, giving up entirely, and got a slap for his trouble. “I’m making a noble sacrifice on their behalf.” The second time he managed to duck, scrambling back and shutting up before the valet decided it was worth making the lesson stick.

Fortunately, he didn’t give chase. “Put those clothes back like you found them. And don’t you dare crease them, or I’ll crease your hide. They need to be ready.”

“Ready for what?” Tigris muttered, though he was already unwinding the sash. “You know he’s never coming.”

“Probably not, and who can blame him? It’s a wonder he keeps you at all.” The valet crossed to the sitting-room door, already bored with the conversation. “Nobody would blame him if he’d simply had you smothered in infancy. You should be more grateful he doesn’t take notice of you, or else you might not have all these nice things.” Tigris made a rude shape with his fingers at the man’s back as he stepped through the doorway, hiding it quickly when he turned back around. “Change into something else, then occupy yourself. Just because I can’t leave you to your own devices this evening doesn’t mean I’m going to entertain you.”

Tigris pulled a face, and the valet rolled his eyes before yanking the door closed behind him.

He didn’t quite dare disobey the order to change, but in a fit of pique, he put on his next-best outfit. Maybe he would go sit in the courtyard and listen to the sounds of revelry over the walls and _pretend_ he was a part of it, at least. 

He liked the way he felt, dressed up for a festival, even if no one would appreciate it. He couldn’t see himself, of course, but he imagined he looked very fine, even if the embroidery on his sleeves was a bit tattered from the time he’d hidden behind the hibiscus bush trying to get out of lessons and been unable to get out again. He still couldn’t manage ribbons on his own, so instead he went out to the garden and plucked some of the little gold florets that bloomed close to the wall, tucking them into his curls at random until his hair looked like a flower-dotted summer field.

He would build his own festival. He didn’t need the awful valet to escort him.

They’d had festivals at home, before he came here. His mother made little cakes or other treats; sometimes there were stalls set up in the flat space beyond the houses, selling adornments or little carved toys or flower seeds. Sometimes there were performers. 

He didn’t think they celebrated this festival in particular, or at least he couldn’t recall, so he decided on a random mix of his favorite things remembered from other holidays. 

Leftover sesame cookies from lunch became festival cakes, wrapped in a handkerchief; a brackish combination of water from the decorative pond and smashed-up purple flowers did just fine for “wine,” since he wasn’t ever allowed to drink it anyway. He arranged petals that had fallen from the garden’s many flora along one courtyard wall to make the decorative bunting that sometimes hung between the houses.

By the time he had done that much, the sounds of the festival proper were beginning to filter in over the walls of his courtyard; laughter, faint distant music, an unusual amount of talk and activity. Tigris closed his eyes, imagining himself among the growing crowd, and told himself it was as good as being there.

A piper was playing a tune he recognized, somewhere far off. He thought he remembered the dance to it, could almost picture his mother twirling through the steps; before he knew it he found himself pacing through it, uncertainly, trying to jog his memory.

A burst of raucous laughter just on the other side of the wall broke his concentration.

"Nour!" A young man's voice. "Oh my beautiful, finely-shaped Nour, how I long to unwrap your—" There was a grunt—a sound very much like the speaker had been elbowed hard in the ribs—and then a sort of wheezy laugh while a second speaker hissed at the first.

"Stop it, do you want her father to hear? You'll ruin this for me."

"It's a terrible idea anyway, it doesn't need me to ruin it. Nour! Nour of the endless legs, of the boundless breasts, your prince is here to—" He went on, but it was muffled beyond comprehensibility, as if there were a hand pressed over his mouth. There was the sound of a slight scuffle, more muffled laughter.

"Go on without me, then, if you don't mean to be helpful!" the second one growled, and the first must have obeyed, because it got quiet again. Tigris, rolling his eyes at the interruption, went back to trying to pace through the half-remembered dance, though the piper had moved on to some other tune now.

After a few moments, there was a sort of scrabbling against the other side of the wall, which he ignored with an effort. It had nothing to do with him, and if he didn't concentrate, this dance would slip away from him entirely and be lost. There was a half-turn, and then was it a step to the left or right? Right, maybe, because the left foot would need to be free to—

Behind him, there was a solid _thump_. He spun around in time to see a young man hauling himself to his feet and dusting off the finest clothing Tigris had ever seen. Had he just _scaled the wall_? Tigris didn't have time to muster the appropriate jealousy for how many times he'd tried and failed the same feat, because just then the man turned to face him. It was the prince.

"Oh. You're not Nour."

Tigris was at something of a loss for words. If the valet had said something similar to him, he'd have no shortage of scathing replies. But he was quite unprepared to face the enemy in his own garden, entirely unscheduled.

He couldn't say precisely when he'd stopped thinking of the crown prince as an irrelevant stranger and started thinking of him as _the enemy_. He was, though, wasn't he? Tigris hadn't liked him from the first, but he hadn't understood the reason then, other than feeling envious of how glad he’d looked on a day which had contained nothing but misery for Tigris.

But he'd absorbed enough of his tutor's lessons on statecraft now to understand that, had the prince not been born, he might have stood to inherit the throne, bastard or no. There were ways of making an illegitimate child legitimate, though Tigris did not precisely understand the legal details, and his tutor had been disinclined to spend much time on it. (There was still some small, slowly dying part of him that hoped it might happen, if only the king would send for him, if only he could be charming and well-behaved and pretend every lesson he'd been given had stuck.) But if the prince had not been born, their father would still have needed an heir, and then he would not have had a choice, would he?

He wished he knew what to say, something clever and devastating. Instead he only stared, long enough for the prince to recover from his own surprise. “Not how I expected to meet,” he said cheerfully, still putting himself back in order, “but I suppose it had to happen sometime. Hello, little brother. What are you doing in the lady Nour's garden?”

“This is my garden,” Tigris said, folding his arms.

“Is it? Nour must be the next one over.” The prince glanced up at the wall Tigris could only assume separated this garden from the next one, clearly sizing it up for a climb.

He may have been the enemy, but he was by far the most interesting visitor Tigris had had since coming here. Tigris didn't like to let him go so soon.

“Shouldn't you be at the festival instead of sneaking into ladies' private gardens?”

The prince grinned down at him. “I was just making a detour on my way. What about you? The children's dances are starting. Shouldn't you be out there?”

There was no good answer for that. He hardly wanted to admit that he was kept here like a penned goat. “I don't care for festivals.”

“No? You're certainly dressed for one.” The prince had him there. Tigris would sooner die than let the valet take the credit for his carefully-chosen attire.

“I mean that I don't like _dancing_ at festivals,” he said, and did what he thought was a very admirable job of hiding his pout.

The prince raised an eyebrow. “Then what was it you were doing when I climbed up? It looked a lot like dancing to me.”

Tigris decided he'd had enough of this interruption, interesting or not. “Why don't you go and bother your lady friend?”

But the prince was still looking at him, with a thoughtful expression he didn't like one bit. “You're not allowed to go, are you?” Tigris didn't say anything. “That's hardly fair! Everyone should get to enjoy a festival day.”

“I think Lady Nour is probably waiting for you.” Tigris didn't know exactly what the prince was planning, but he could well imagine the trouble he'd be in if the heir to the throne burst in to tell his valet he ought to be allowed out for festival days. Never mind that it wasn't any of his doing, he was sure he'd catch the blame somehow.

“The Lady Nour can wait. This is more important. How can I leave my own brother in such dire straits?” Before Tigris could think of another convincing protest, he went on. “How well do you climb?”

Oh, so _that_ was what he intended. Well, much though Tigris would have enjoyed flouting the valet's rules, tugging on that thread wouldn’t unravel anything. “Do you think if I could climb that wall I wouldn't have done it already?”

The prince grinned. “So you _do_ want to. Don't worry, I can make this work. Let me think.” He poked at the wall he'd come over in the first place, scuffling thoughtfully at a few spots with a toe, trying and failing to work loose a stone around his shoulder height. “Do you have any rope?”

“Why would I have rope?”

The prince shrugged. “Anything that will hold your weight, then. Long enough to go over the other side.”

Nothing like that in the garden, of course. Tigris eyed the prince warily for a moment, then edged back inside, half-convinced when he came back his brother would be long gone.

But if there was even the slightest chance, he meant to take it.

The wall hangings seemed to have potential, but there were too few, and he wasn't all that certain they would hold his weight—the blankets posed a similar difficulty. There was nothing in the wardrobe he was quite willing to sacrifice for this adventure. He cast around, frustrated, certain that even if the prince had waited he would surely be growing bored by now, possibly leaving at this very moment.

He tore back outside, but the prince was still there, leaning idly against the wall.

Tigris crept over, sheepish. “I don’t have anything like that. I think they do that on purpose.”

“Ah, well,” said the prince, light and easy, and turned around to survey the wall again. So that was it. Tigris swallowed hard and tried not to show his disappointment—he’d gotten a lot of practice with the valet at hiding his emotions, at least.

“Here, help me move some of these paving stones over.” Tigris blinked his eyes quickly dry and turned to see the prince dislodging part of the path. “I think if I stand on a few of them I can boost you high enough to climb over.”

Some small part of him objected to tearing up his garden, but the larger part was so pleased that the prince hadn’t given up and gone without him that little else mattered. He could always move the stones back later. The valet probably wouldn’t even notice. He didn’t care that much about the garden.

They stacked the flat stones, adjusting them until they were steady. Then the prince bent down so Tigris could climb on his shoulders, stepped up onto the stones, and braced Tigris as he awkwardly scrambled up to a standing position. It was wobbly for a second and Tigris was sure he would fall; but then he got an arm over the top of the wall, and then he was able to scrabble his way up and sit astride it.

“Don’t try and get down yet, you might break something if you fall.” The prince hopped down from the stones, then backed up into the courtyard so he could get a running start. A few steps launched him up the wall, and he caught the top messily and hauled himself up. He’d scraped up his knuckles, but otherwise it had been a very impressive feat.

He judged the distance down on the far side, then slid down to hang by his arms, dropping in a way that let him land—a little clumsily, but safely—on his feet. “Did you see how I did that? Ease down that way and I’ll catch you, all right?”

Tigris knew, if he gave himself time to consider, that he was going to panic. So he simply nodded and pushed himself off. There was a brief terrifying moment when he hung, feet stretching for a solid surface that simply wasn’t there; then he made himself let go, and true to his word, the prince caught him, softening the landing.

His feet touched down, but he felt light as a bird. _Free_. He began grinning as soon as he turned around; the prince caught him at it and grinned back.

“That's the spirit. What's your name, again?”

“Tigris.” He was too busy goggling wide-eyed at the foot traffic through the breezeway around them to be petulant. Besides, he supposed his brother _had_ helped him achieve his aims—the least he could give him was a name.

“Gael.”

“I know who you are,” Tigris scoffed. “Everyone knows.”

Gael was unaffected by his scorn. “Do you want to go join the dancing? Or should we eat first? Have you ever had festival food?”

“ _Of course_ I have.” Tigris was not entirely certain that anything he'd eaten in Mercata counted, given the luxurious excesses in the capitol, but he wouldn't admit that to the enemy. “But we could still eat.”

“As you like.” They came down a set of stairs and into a courtyard—Tigris realized, with a start, that it was the same courtyard he'd entered through the first day. Then they were out the gates and into the city proper, and he had no more time to think of the past. There was far too much to see in the present.

If he'd thought the crowds were large when last he'd passed through these streets, it was nothing to the sheer volume of revelers on a festival day. Back then, compared to his quiet home, it had seemed terrible and terrifying. But after being shut away for a year and more, the press of people seemed thrilling and novel.

“Here!” the prince called, pulling them out of the flow towards a stall selling goat skewers and cookies folded into the shape of flowers.

Tigris knew little about the value of coins, but he could tell by the vendor's face that the prince vastly overpaid. Foolish, showing off who he was in a crowd this large, but never mind. Tigris was happy enough to eat on the prince's allowance, however unwisely he may have spent it.

That did make him wonder, though. “Should you be out here alone? Doesn't a prince get a guard of some kind?”

The prince grinned down at him. “Technically, a prince celebrates in the palace. Don't worry, little brother, we're not in any danger.”

The wheels of Tigris' mind turned. For starters, he doubted it was true that a king's firstborn was ever _entirely_ out of danger. He wondered what would happen if someone were to—well, if the prince were somehow out of the picture.

Would the king try for another son? Everyone said the queen couldn't bear any other children, and so wasn't it lucky for the realm that the first one had been a boy? (Tigris disagreed vehemently with the second part, but he didn't see any reason why the first couldn’t be true.) If the queen was barren now, the king would have to make a new marriage to have another legitimate son, which would cause bad blood with the queen's people. 

No, he wouldn't go to the trouble of all that. Not when he had another son ready-made. It wasn't usual, and certainly some would object to putting a bastard in line for the throne, but it would invite less challenge than naming an heir without any royal blood at all.

Tigris looked around as surreptitiously as he could, trying to determine if anyone around was paying them undue attention, or ignoring them too ostentatiously. Maybe, if he could find someone already planning to do the deed…

No, that was foolish. If someone wanted King Abran's line off the throne, they wouldn't stop at the prince. Tigris wasn't sure how many people beyond the palace knew of his existence—or at least, knew that he was the king's son and not some courtier's—but even so, he was clearly in the prince's company, and that might make him a target regardless of his identity. He didn't like his odds trying to escape through a crowd this size in unfamiliar streets, either.

Happily for his conclusions, no one seemed to be much interested in them at all, other than the admiring looks Prince Gael was getting from flirtatious young women. Tigris supposed even in the capitol, it might be difficult to connect the distant figure that was the prince at official functions with this cheerful young man whose twists were coming loose.

“Don’t you have a valet?” Tigris asked him through a mouthful of cookie.

The prince cocked his head, cheerfully bemused. “I have plenty of servants.”

Tigris looked dubiously at his hair. “Maybe yours just isn’t very good then.” And then, because his tricky little mind was always at work on some way to improve his circumstances— “Mine is very good at hair. Shouldn’t the prince have a valet who knows what he’s doing? We could trade if you wanted.”

“Are you saying there’s something wrong with my hair?” The prince was laughing at him. He supposed it had been a fairly transparent ploy, but his twists _were_ unraveling. He opened his mouth to say so, but the prince shoved a cookie in it as soon as he did, then mussed his carefully-ornamented hair as Tigris made a muffled sound of outrage. Tiny yellow flowers cascaded to the ground.

“Come on, seedling, let’s go find the dancing,” the prince said cheerfully, and tugged him back into the immense crowd. Tigris wanted to sulk, but he did have a mouth full of cookie and the promise of dancing. He could nurse his grudges later.

They came out onto an immense square. The dust had been wetted and tamped down to make a better floor, and pennants of brightly printed cloth flew from poles marking the corners of the dance space. The prince nudged him towards them, and Tigris edged up until he could see the dancers, glancing back once to be sure the prince was still with him.

He was. He gave Tigris an encouraging grin, then shoved him into the dance.

It was easier than he feared to join in. He stumbled into a chubby-cheeked younger girl, who gave him a gap-toothed grin and broke the line to let him in. He joined hands with her and the boy on the other side, and from there it was simple enough to let himself be pulled along. They stamped in time, threw up their hands in unison, tugged him forward to duck under the opposite line’s joined hands and then linked up again to let the other line duck beneath theirs. He soon found the pattern, laughing and stamping with the rest; from time to time he caught a glimpse of the prince at the edge of the crowd, clapping to the tune and shouting encouragement.

Tigris danced three, maybe four dances, before the music stopped. They were clearing the space now; if it was like it had been at home, there would be a brief break, and then as afternoon slid into evening it would be time for the adults to dance. Tigris wanted to see that, but he was hot and thirsty and wanted a moment to breathe. Maybe the prince knew where there was a fountain to drink from.

Only…the prince wasn’t there. Tigris hesitated at the edge of the crowd, searching, but then none of the other people looked familiar either. He’d spun around so many times he must have lost his bearings—surely the prince was on the far side.

Across the way, he saw a woman with a yellow sash—yes! She had been standing beside the prince, he was sure. He struck out that direction, but when he drew closer there was no sign of his half-brother—and on closer inspection, maybe she wasn’t the same woman at all.

It was all right. Tigris was hard to miss. The prince would spot him soon, and in the meantime, he’d keep looking.

But no one called out his name, or even _little brother._ He checked the entire perimeter, but people kept dispersing and reappearing and changing places and most of them were well above his height which made it difficult. He was just starting to panic when a hand grasped his shoulder.

He spun around, relieved, but it wasn’t the prince who stood there—only an old woman with a broom, shooing him gently out of the way so that she could finish sweeping the loose dust aside for the next dance.

“Don’t look so sad!” she laughed. “There’ll be more dancing soon enough.”

Her smile encouraged him. “Auntie,” he said, trying to breathe, “can you help me? I lost my brother.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Tall. Well—taller than me.” He raised his hand above his head in a rough estimate that was probably totally inadequate to convey anything. “He’s wearing blue—he has brown hair and lion-eyes and—” That wasn’t much to go on at all. He wracked his brain, trying to think of anything that would make him easier to identify. “His twists were coming unraveled,” he added, with little hope.

“Handsome boy? Good teeth and too many gold bracelets?”

“Yes!” He glanced around eagerly. “Do you see him?”

She patted his shoulder again. “Not now, but earlier. Went off somewhere with a girl. I wouldn’t worry, I’m sure he’ll meet you back home after the celebrations are over.” She winked. “With looks like that, I’m sure it’s not the first time he’s disappeared somewhere with a girl, is it?”

“I thought he would stay by me,” Tigris said, then immediately realized how stupid it sounded and closed his mouth.

It was his own foolish fault. Why would he believe that the prince wanted to drag his bastard little brother around? Even the valet, whose livelihood it was to have to deal with him, didn’t want to be saddled with him at a festival. Prince Gael was the enemy. Tigris should have known better than to be wooed by an escape route and a few treats.

Well, he’d show the prince. He could find his own way, despite being abandoned. He set out very determinedly in what he thought was the direction they’d come from. (He could have stayed to watch the rest of the dancing—but he wouldn’t want it to look as if he were _waiting_ for the prince to come back. It certainly _wasn’t_ because he was worried about finding his way back after night fell.)

Unfortunately for Tigris, at his height the crowd was far more visible than the unchanging edifices of the city. It was a shifting, jostling landscape that obscured any landmarks he might have gotten his bearings by, and even when he was able to break free and take a guess at a direction, he was soon knocked off course. There was no following a straight line, and that was when he could manage to move at all.

The panic pressed in again, but he curled his fingers, letting his nails bite into the heels of his hands for distraction. He’d gotten himself into this, and he was going to get himself out. He didn’t need his awful brother to rescue him—or anyone else. He would do this, he would find his way back, he would get there—never mind that the light was fading now, and nothing looked familiar.

He would...he would just step out of the flow for a moment, catch his breath against this wall here. All would be well. He would...he would…

He felt as if his throat was closing up. He’d cried some in the first few months after he came to the city; but he’d learned soon enough that it didn’t salve any old wounds, and occasionally invited new ones, so he’d stopped. This was the closest he’d come to it in the year and more since. He drew small, gulping breaths and tried to hold himself together—though it was a bit of a wasted effort, when not a single soul in this immense sea of people even glanced his direction. He had the feeling that he could have thrown himself down on the dust and sobbed like a babe and people would simply step over him like an inconvenient stone.

He smudged his sleeve across his eyes and tried not to notice how little it helped, the tears welling up again as soon as he'd banished them. He blinked hard, then braced himself to set off again into the crowd for another try.

A string of curses in a familiar voice halted him.

Tigris had never imagined—even a few hours earlier—that he would find himself happy to see the valet. Still, the sight of him was so welcome that the tears spilled over; before he quite knew what he was doing, Tigris threw himself at the man, clinging to him like a lifeline. He was ready to apologize, to throw himself on the valet's mercy, to confess the error of his ways, if only he could go back to his safe quiet room and garden.

The valet stopped a few words into his tirade, looking entirely nonplussed. After a long moment of confusion, frowning down at the boy hugging his ribs, he seemed to come to a conclusion. He pressed the heel of his hand against Tigris' forehead and peeled him loose, the frown deepening into a scowl.

“Don't try that with me, you deceitful little beast. I don't know how you did it, but you'll regret it, believe you me.”

Tigris loosened his fists where they were wound in the valet's shirt, with some difficulty, and drew a shaky breath. “Can we go home?”

“Home indeed,” the valet sneered, catching him with a tight grip on the back of the neck and steering him in the exact opposite of the direction he would have chosen. “Lucky you want to, since you'll be looking at the inside of that room for the rest of your natural life.”

Tigris didn't bother trying to defend himself. Even if the truth had been likely to sway his temper—which it wasn't—Tigris did not need anyone else to know how foolish he'd been. His brother was probably gloating even now. Tigris sniffed hard, trying to hold himself together, his pride stung and his sense of security shaken.

“And stop with the crocodile tears,” the valet snarled, pulling sharply on Tigris' ear before resuming his hold. “Nobody believes it, least of all me.”

He did his best to obey, if only because part of him genuinely feared the valet would leave him here lost and afraid if he didn't. He let himself be towed along quietly, and when at last the palace came into sight, he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

They didn't cross through the same courtyard on the return trip; Tigris supposed it wasn't an entrance for ordinary folk, going about their everyday business. Instead they came in through a small side-gate, passing a few servants at ease before stepping inside. As his panic ebbed, Tigris began paying attention to where they walked, and then tried to remember the turns the valet had taken to bring them through the city streets.

He never wanted to feel like this again. He _did_ want to crawl back into his own pallet, safe in his room, but—he also did not want to stay confined there forever, not when the only person he had to come home to was the awful valet. There was only one solution—he would have to learn his way, find how corridors connected and where streets converged and divided. He wouldn't be lost and desperate again, not for his brother's amusement, not for the valet's easy and exasperated retrieval.

The resolution made him feel slightly less frightened, and—if not less betrayed—then at least more righteous in his betrayed state.

Still, once they were back—when he was certain the valet had gone off to drink himself into a stupor and could not hear—he pressed his face into the pillows and cried himself to sleep.


	3. The Menagerie

“The tiger’s out of its cage again,” the valet said sourly, when he opened the doors to find an empty suite.

“Why are you complaining? Means he’s not taking your head off over his braids being too tight or his drape being too loose or whatever else it is he fusses about.” A servant-boy pushed past him with an armful of flowers and began methodically replacing the ones from yesterday in each vase, though they had barely begun to wilt.

“Better him than the king. He can only take my head off in the metaphorical sense.” The valet scowled and opened the wardrobe, checking the contents—Tigris knew that trick. He’d deliberately hidden several outfits, hunting clothes and a fancy evening sarong and the rougher togs he liked to cause trouble in, and good luck to anyone trying to guess where he’d be found by his dress.

Or by any means, really. They’d be looking for him down in the city for a few hours at least. He’d learned a few things in the seven years since his first escape.

In truth he perched on the sill of the open window, appreciating the hot, dry breeze, and waiting for the search to begin. The heavy drapes were drawn against the day’s heat, shielding him from view. It was a terrible hiding place, the first place any child would check playing Gone to Ground; his useless valet would never, ever think to look _inside_ the room.

That was the power of setting expectations. They only expected him to do what they’d already caught him at—it only made sense to let himself be caught now and again, to define the parameters, to set the boundaries of where they would think to look.

“He’s probably down in the city drinking,” said the servant’s voice, close by Tigris’ window, the bright citrusy smell of the flowers stealing through the drapes. Tigris drew in a breath, filling his head with the scent. One of his many indulgences.

“Let us hope. That’s the _least_ disruptive thing he could be up to.” The valet was shuffling through his correspondence now, though there was very little of it to go through and nothing recent. Tigris had only learned his letters when he’d come to the palace, and never grown to like them very much. Anyway, who would he correspond with? There would have been nothing interesting to find, even if he had not been careful about his effects.

At last the valet left; a few minutes later, the boy with the flowers did too. Tigris pushed the drapes aside and let himself out into the corridor.

He didn’t bother to be surreptitious. A benefit of his particular circumstances was that no one wanted to admit when he’d slipped his tether, meaning that his absence was typically considered need-to-know information. The hope was always that he’d be retrieved with a minimum of fuss and the king none the wiser. Sometimes he let them have it.

The corridors were dim and cool in the day’s heat. As a child, he had gazed at the floor every time he passed through them, entranced by the tiled mosaics beneath his feet. Now he kept his gaze up, shoulders back but relaxed, striding slow and easy as if he owned them.

Someday he would. In the meantime, image was important.

His image was carefully curated, years in the making. They called him _the tiger_ , and though it was a little uninspired—more a diminutive of his name than honorific or insult—it served his purposes. He embraced it, in fact; he had the valet split his braids so that the white striped against the black, and where the white did not reach, gold-dyed lambswool supplied the striping. He lined his eyes black, like the tiger in the menagerie, and used its colors—gold, and orange, and the green of its eyes—in his jewelry.

People looked at him and saw vanity, overconfidence; charisma, but no potential. Like the menagerie tiger, sharp teeth and claws, but no real power to use them beyond his enclosure. He was a little dangerous to associate with, out of favor with the king and liable to be cruel-tongued, but had no real power in the court. People looked at them both and saw no credible threat, and that was how he liked it.

Still, when he was king, he thought he might turn the menagerie tiger loose. Let them all see how well its teeth and claws worked then.

It was still a little strange to see people moving through these corridors. Tigris had, for many years, haunted the halls at night; there was a fine sliver of time between the latest sleepers and the earliest risers, and that time was his alone. There were guards, of course, posted at all hours. But this far to the interior they were lazy, complacent, well aware that any credible threat would have to go through a great many other guards to make it here, giving them plenty of warning. They were not sharp-eyed on the lookout for a king’s bastard who was supposed to be asleep in another wing entirely.

He knew every inch of the place by candlelight—save, of course, the personal apartments of the family, as sneaking into those in the dead of night was too risky even for even his troublemaking soul. By daylight, filtered dimly through small skylights, these halls seemed a surreal version of the nighttime palace that was his own domain.

He came out near the kitchens, blinking in the sunny space. It was a good meeting spot; there were always plenty of people coming and going, and more still cooling their heels until they were called upon to be somewhere else. It was hot, of course, with the large ovens stoked, but there was a well in the space between the main palace and the largest kitchen. You could also stand on the far side, away from the ovens and in the shade most of the day—that was where Tigris was headed, now.

The man he hoped to meet was already waiting, and by the look of it had been here for some time. He'd managed to coax one of the cooks into feeding him; only a bit of yesterday's bread and some oil to soak it in, but still, he must have charmed someone. Tigris strolled over, leaned against the low kitchen wall—near, but not too near.

"Fair day to you. What errand brings you?"

The man, who Tigris knew as Adil, lounged idly against one of the roof supports. "Fair enough inside the walls. I came inside to get out of the sun."

"Intense out there, is it?"

Adil gave him a wry look. "You have no idea. I hear the king's third general had to ride through the city in a closed carriage last week when he returned from the borders." His mouth quirked. "You'd think that one would have less delicate skin."

Tigris wished he'd been outside the walls to see it. Probably nothing _too_ dangerous had happened—the king and his hangers-on grew less beloved all the time, but he didn't sense that things had shifted quite so far that they’d be openly attacked yet. But even seeing the general's palanquin pelted with trash would have satisfied him in some petty way. "What about the king himself? Does he go out under a screen these days?"

Adil barked a short laugh. "What do you think? No, he's too dark to burn, or at least everyone believes he is."

_They won't when I'm done with him,_ Tigris thought, but even in like-minded company that was a dangerous sentiment to express aloud. "It seems to me that we're only at the cusp of summer. The glare will only get brighter as the days go on."

"You're not wrong." Adil finished his bread, wiped his hands on his thighs. " _Anyone_ can catch sun-sickness if they aren't careful. And," he glanced up as if checking the clouds in earnest, "there's no rain coming anytime soon."

"You know a cloud-reader?"

"Don't need to. It's getting so anyone can read the weather." He gave Tigris a long, meaningful look. "Stay in the shade yourself. You don't have his resistance, and if you get out under it—"

"You know it's no trouble for me to stay out of the light," Tigris said, smirking. "I take your point, but don't worry. I'm a creature of the night, if anything."

"I hope that helps you when the summer reaches its peak," Adil said solemnly.

"I'll save you a spot beneath the canopy, my friend," Tigris told him.

"So you say." His serious demeanor evaporated suddenly, which meant someone had strayed too near their conversation. "Never mind that, you should come out some evening. Volca's been asking after you."

Tigris rolled his eyes. "Volca thinks I have some secret funds. She won't be so glad to see me when she realizes my father's largesse does not include an allowance by which to engage her services."

"Can't imagine why she would think that. You only wear her year's wages in tailoring and talk like your teeth are gilded." Their listener must have moved on; Adil grinned and sprawled more ostentatiously against the post. "If Volca can't tempt you back, there's always other sport to be had. I wouldn't even demand your coin for it. Just a few rounds of wine."

Tigris snorted and scuffed a little cloud of dust toward him with one sandal. "You don't even need wine if I tell you you’re pretty."

Adil shrugged, unrepentant, and winked at him. "Well, you're a better liar than most. You almost make me believe it." Then, pushing himself upright again, "I've got business, can’t hang around. But you should come down, sometime soon, for Volca or for me or just for the dice. It's more fun in the mire when you've dragged the royal bastard down into it with you."

"If I could spend the pleasure of my company instead of coin, I promise you'd see a great deal more of me. But as things stand, I have to take what I can get, and so do the rest of you degenerates." Tigris smiled and clasped his shoulder; Adil punched him lightly on the arm, then they parted ways.

Tigris thought the valet and his cronies would still be checking his city haunts for a while to come; he had time to make another stop, so he headed back into the palace proper, this time towards the central wing.

It took time for his eyes to adjust, coming back inside from the dazzling sun, but his feet were already on the move. He cut down a service corridor—his vision cleared just in time to duck out of the way of two busybody waiting-maids who knew his face and would almost certainly have raised the alarm that he was loose. Then inwards towards the his destination, the center of the palace; the very heart of the kingdom in some ways, and from that heart flowed Tigris' lifeblood, _information._

Well, it wasn't _meant_ to flow past the closed system the king had made of it. But that was hardly Tigris' problem.

He stepped into a small, disused records room, closing the door carefully behind him. The scent of aging reed-paper was unpleasantly sharp; his nose stung for a moment until he grew used to it. It was even more dimly lit here than in the corridors, the single small window covered with stretched skin.

The window seemed to imply it hadn’t always been a dusty closet, packed with shelves full of decades-old tally sheets bound into ledgers. It clearly had been that for many years by the time Tigris first came across it, though. Maybe they had meant to disguise the room’s purpose; or maybe it had only been that someone forgot why the room was built, and figured it might as well go for storage.

Whatever the reason, no one seemed to know its uses now.

There was a panel—a bit of wall that looked to be set wrong. Clever fingers could find the catch; in his younger years Tigris had only meant to cause a little destruction, maybe tear loose a few tiles from an already-loose setting, but instead he’d found the whole thing lifting away. It had taken him quite a bit more effort to work out what it was _for_ —it didn’t seem to open to anything, just a narrow bit of dead space between walls.

At least, it seemed that way when the king’s cabinet was not in session.

They met in the room adjacent; Tigris didn’t know whether it was tradition or mere chance that kept them there even after this room fell into disuse. Perhaps because it _seemed_ very secure. It would be very difficult for anyone to spy on the proceedings—with nowhere inside the room to hide, the windows high and narrow, the door too thick for voices to filter through and without a keyhole to listen at (it could be barred from the inside, but there was no lock).

It was, of course, the illusion of security rather than the fact of it. Anyone sitting in the hidden wall-space of the records room, after all, could hear every word as clearly as if he were at the table himself. It had doubtless been of some use to the kings of old, allowing their own agents to listen in without being seen, but no one came here now except Tigris. He’d learned a great deal about the intricate business of the kingdom from that very position.

Which was lucky, since no one bothered to tell him anything useful otherwise. And he couldn’t very well persuade them by insisting that he’d need to know, someday, when he seized the throne for himself.

He bent down to pry the panel loose. It gave a quiet click and then a swishy sigh as it came away; then, from behind him, there was the distinct sound of a book snapping shut.

He managed not to drop the panel, which would have been disastrously noisy. But there was no way to protest innocence when he whirled around with it in his hands, coming face to face with Prince Gael.

He managed to bite down on the curse that jumped to his lips, though just barely.

He had, of course sighted his half-brother at a distance many times since their less-than-pleasant meeting so many years ago, golden and insufferably happy with his insufferable parents, but they had not been this close to one another since that day _._ It was clear the king did not want them to interact, which probably explained why the prince had never tried to torment him again after that little piece of nastiness. Of course, it would have been easy for Tigris to force a confrontation, and it certainly would have irritated their father, a pastime of which he was fond; but he rarely did things just for one reason, and it was easy enough to needle the king with activities that also served other purposes. 

Tigris collected himself, letting his distaste overtake his initial startlement, and gave the prince a smug little smile. “Prince Gael. I never expected to renew our acquaintance while you were lurking in shadowy corners, I admit.”

“Perhaps it runs in the family,” the prince remarked, little lines of tension appearing at the corners of his eyes and mouth that might have been a suppressed smile. “Do you mean to take apart my palace brick by brick?”

“It’s your palace now?” Tigris widened his eyes, an expression of exaggerated concern. “Has something untoward happened to our father, and no one told me?”

“Our—” Gael cut himself off. “The king is quite well, thank you. The palace is mine in the sense that it is my responsibility, as part of the duties of—” Again he stopped, and this time there was a definite edge of a smile, though it was the grudging smile of a man who’d just watched a street magician disappear his coin into thin air. “But I needn’t explain myself to you. You, on the other hand...what _is_ behind that wall? A secret cache? A passageway to some visiting lady’s chamber?”

_Visiting ladies_ , Tigris noted with an idle part of his mind, resolving to pay some of them court later if he could manage it—he had a reputation to maintain, and it was always nice to maintain it with women who wouldn’t be around long enough to reconsider their scruples and invite him to their beds. The rest of him catalogued the prince’s reactions, his eagerness for some interesting story, and sought for one that would satisfy him.

“Neither, though I’m sorry to disappoint.” He stepped aside to reveal the empty space, letting Gael peer into it and verify it held nothing of interest before he went on. No point performing for a distracted audience, after all. When the prince turned to look at him again, confused and curious, he dropped his gaze to his feet and tucked his shoulders in a bit, as if slightly embarrassed. “I used to come and hide here when they first brought me to the palace—when I was feeling homesick, or when my lessons were going poorly and I couldn’t stomach another switching from the tutor. I know, it’s a little maudlin, but it still gives me some comfort.” There. Let the prince believe he was as weak and pitiful a target as he’d been the last time they’d met, he’d surely like that.

He’d guessed right, though maybe for the wrong reasons. Gael’s face relaxed a little, his eyes warming the way a fool’s always did when presented with a lost lamb or a sad orphan—did he actually feel _sorry_ for Tigris? Well, it was possible he’d outgrown the mean streak, and if he were a soft touch now it would make things even easier for Tigris. 

He did have the presence of mind to keep the pity out of his words, at least, his tone still gently mocking. “Surely you’re not fleeing the switches of tutors nowadays. Creditors, perhaps? Oh, or I hear the ladies of the brothels are known to wield a willow wand if you ask nicely. Got in over your head, did you?”

Tigris laughed obligingly. “You know my reputation, I see. I did not expect the crown prince of the realm to have an ear for gossip.” He hefted the wall panel, more to remind the prince he was holding it than because it weighed much. “Charming though this has been, I think you are aware that the king would prefer us not to interact. Allow me to apologize for interrupting your research, demonstrate that the damage to _your_ palace is fully reversible, and then I’ll be on my way.”

If he could just slot the panel back in place, he could make a very clean escape. He would miss the king’s council, of course, but he suspected having the prince’s pity might yet prove valuable. It was an acceptable trade-off.

Except—he wasn’t quick enough. Before he could turn and fit the panel back, the king’s voice echoed from the wall space; he’d just entered the council chamber, it seemed, speaking to one of his military advisors. Only small talk and pleasantries, the meeting not yet started, but it made suddenly and inescapably clear what the wall space was properly for.

There was a long moment when he and the prince locked eyes.

Then the prince’s face changed, hardening in an instant, and before Tigris could say anything he found himself slammed against the wall, pinned hard by Gael’s hands at his shoulders. He didn’t even try to struggle against it; they were of a height, but Gael was clearly in peak physical condition, when the most athletic thing Tigris was called upon to do regularly was shimmy down a few roof tiles when escape via misdirection proved ineffective. Besides, he was still holding the panel, and if he dropped it the noise would surely be heard in the council chamber.

“You meant to _spy_ ,” the prince growled, and there was no warmth in his tone now. Tigris could feel the nape of his neck tightening, his sense of danger misfiring—as if he could not talk circles around his spoiled royal half-brother! Still, there was a cold metallic taste on his tongue, and he felt less like a tiger just now than like the tiger’s prey. “Is it not enough that my father keeps you in luxury, turns a blind eye to all your mischief?” Gael said, low and cold. “You are right, I do keep up with the gossip. I know how you take every opportunity to antagonize him. Are you really so desperate for his attention?”

Tigris’ temper roared to sudden life. He could usually hold it in check under great provocation, or at least maintain his facade even while delivering vitriol, but something about this whole encounter made him careless. “His _attention_? I would be happier if he were unaware of my existence. All I want is a little knowledge of the world! Do you know how difficult it is to find out even the most mundane details about life outside my rooms? I had more news on the farm in Mercata than here!” He could not lean forward, pinned as he was, but he thrust his chin out and set his jaw. “You take it for granted, I’m sure, but I would be overjoyed to hear something so simple as _crop forecasts_ , if only for the novelty. I can rarely steal more than an hour with anyone who doesn’t know better than to tell me the news before I’m apprehended and sent home like a scolded child. _This_ —” he jerked his head towards the conversation still coming clearly through the wall, “for me, is like water on a field in drought.”

Gael stared him down, and he glared back, biting the tip of his tongue to distract him from the useless but overwhelming urge to fight against the hold on his shoulders. At last, Gael let out a dissatisfied breath and stepped back just enough to release him.

“Maybe the whores can update you on poultry futures, if you pay a little extra next time.” Another long stare, then he made an imperious gesture of dismissal. “Don’t let me catch you here again.”

Tigris set down the panel—let Gael work out himself how to put it back—then pressed past the prince. He didn’t quite dare to shoulder-check him, on the probability that he’d simply be bounced backwards if he tried it, but he passed close enough to register his disrespectful disregard. “I can assure you I will not.”

After all, _not getting caught_ numbered chief among Tigris’ skills.

~

A week later, a folded sheaf of paper was delivered to his door. His valet tried for it, but Tigris snatched it first, with a quick smile and apology to its bearer before closing the door in her face.

It took some determined puzzling over before he could make sense of the contents. Reading was difficult enough for him when he knew what he was looking at; harder still when he had no context. At last he realized—it was a stack of _crop yield reports from Mercata_. He ground his teeth, rustling through the pages until he found the note on the last sheet in a visibly different hand.

_Here you are—the last luxury you feel you’ve been denied. Hopefully it can keep you from tearing apart my palace._

Prince Gael’s writing was crisp and clear, easily read even for Tigris. It probably wasn’t a deliberate insult—the prince would have no way of knowing how poor his bastard brother’s reading skills were—but it ignited Tigris’ fury even further.

He’d have to make dealing with the prince the last stage of his plan, clearly, if he could be so easily baited by him. Until then, he would continue to do as he always had done—apparently, more wisely than he knew—and continue to avoid his half-brother. The next time they saw one another, he decided, would be at their father’s entombment.

By then he would have a plan for disposing of Gael too. It would be far easier to keep a cool head.


End file.
